“You Need A Blood Bath”
Text: Exodus 29:19-21; Luke 17:11-19(doesn’t matter how far off you are if you call on him he will respond)
If I asked you right now how many of you want to be anointed I would think that almost all if not everyone would raise their hands. We all covet the anointing because it is that anointing that makes us better. If you sing, you want to be anointed because it makes your sing better. If you preach, you want to be anointed because it makes you preach better. If you play ball, do business, work in the medical field, or teach in a classroom you want the anointing because it makes you better. It makes you more effective, more successful. Even if you fight you want to be anointed. How many boxers claim God’s favor on their performance? Samson understood this. Anoint me one last time. The anointing applied to natural abilities and giftings makes us better than we really are.
And the fact is I want you to be anointed. If there ever was a generation that we need to be anointed and power filled it is this one. We are in desperate need of young men and women who have the more than talent, more than ability, more than giftings. We need you to operate at a higher level of excellence, power, and deliverance than ever. We need you to be able to walk into demonic, hopeless, and impossible, against all odds situation in business and bring breakthrough. We need you to be able to stand up, take a mic and produce a sound that will set drug addicts free. We need an anointed Word to rise up in you that will set a generation on its ear and bring about moral, economic, social, and political revolutions. We need you to have the anointing.
However, too many of us are like the 9 lepers who encountered Jesus. They wanted His anointing with no relationship. Just let me experience your power, but don’t go any deeper than that. Tommy Tenney calls spiritual pornography. Cheap thrills without intimacy or relationship. We want to preach we just don’t want any discipline. We want to sing just no consecration. We want the favor without the fervor.
I am here to declare to you that you cannot experience the anointing without going through the appropriate process. Exodus shows us very clearly that before you can apply the oil you must first apply the blood. I am here to tell you that what you really need is a blood bath. More than we need you to be anointed we need you to be bloody. Some of you look anointed, but I would rather that you look bloody. Oil follows blood not the other way around. The oil cannot and will not go where the blood has not gone.
We must go through the process. In order for us to get the oil we must first apply the blood as describe in Exodus 29. In Exodus 29 we find the prescribed method of consecrating a pries. I Peter 2:19 tells us that whether we like it or not we are priests. As priests we must go through the purification process in order to be useful and anointed. See we are convinced that blood only relates to and is good for sin in our life. Blood also consecrating us. However, we find out that we should also apply the blood to three major areas of our life. The instruction is to apply the blood to the lobe of our right ear, the tip of the right thumb, and the tip of the right big toe.
1. Our Ear
In order for you to be anointed you must consecrate your ears. How can you continually hear from God when your ears are constantly being inundated with every manor of evil and vulgarity? Applying the blood to the ear signified that everything heard must be dedicated to God. I am convinced that most of our struggles and temptations come from unconsecrated ears. What we allow into our ears we allow into our spirit. That is why Philippians 4:8 charges us to only think on pure, lovely, things of good report. There is no wiggle room there. There is no style allowances made. There is no ability to compartmentalize what we feed our spirit. If it doesn’t fall into one of these areas it is off limits. Again in 2 Timothy 2:16 we are instructed, “Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.” The only way to avoid the chatter is to consecrate your ears.
It is time that we apply the blood of Christ to our ears and make sure that what fills our ears, which will also fill our mind, glorifies the Father. The next time you flip on the radio or TV or when someone around you begins to badmouth you or others, remember that your ears have been set apart to listen only to God’s voice.
You have the right to hear from many sources. Too often we choose to listen to every source but the source. Our ears must be consecrated by the blood! We need to hear from God. Come here to hear from God but refuse to consecrate your ears. One man said, “words are judged by hearing.” Your choice to listen gives those words place. What you give place to you give root to. What takes root produces fruit!
2. Right Thumb
Blood was also applied to the thumb to signify that our hands are to be set apart as holy hands. Psalms 24:3-4 reminds us of this. David asks us the question, “Who can ascend unto God? Who can be used by God? Who can handle the oil? Those who have clean hands and a pure hearts.
We must be extremely careful about what we handle. I am concerned that too many of us who so badly want anointing, allow our hands that are supposed to be consecrated to be used for evil rather than good. We handle things inappropriately. What we touch and how we touch them is something we need to be careful about. We must make sure that the works of our hands are holy. What are you touching? Who are you touching? How are you touching? Consecrate your hands.
3. Big Toe
Finally, the Word says they would apply blood to the toe. This is a vivid reminder to us as priests that we are anointed to set aside our walk from our paths to His paths. Remember we are called to a higher calling! We must walk so that we can say like David in Psalms 119:101, “I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word.” We must walk above reproach. We have forgotten that like Joseph we must use our feet to flee evil. We are commanded in Ephesians 5:15 to walk circumspectly or in other words perfect, straight, In other words, we must have a more dedicated walk. One version says to walk carefully. Watch how your walk.
You are never off. You never get a moment off. You can never let your walk wonder for a few seconds. We must live a more reviewed and examined life. Our path must change so that we walk according to a different set of questions. The question must change from “Is it sinful?” to “Is it too close to sin?”
I believe that some of you need to just narrow down. Since when is our path wide? Since when are we allowed to walk the same path as those that aren’t connected to Christ? It isn’t called the straight and narrow for nothing. Our path is to be consecrated to Him.
Are you leaving any blood behind? It would do us good to remember that those who walk behind us are only following the footprints we leave behind. Be careful where you go!
Romans 12:1-2 (aorist tense – happens once and continues through life) This requires a constantly, daily, consecrated life.
I want you to have oil. But I want it to stick. I want you to be more than another account of success followed by moral failure.
I end by reminding you about Saul. Anointed. Oil running down his head. Talented. Gifted. Handsome. But he had a problem. No blood. No discipline. No consecration. He didn’t mind the anointing. In fact, he stood and prophesied. He liked the oil and yet he didn’t care about relationship. For 20 years he didn’t even bother to seek the ark that had been captured by the enemy. Saul didn’t pursue the ark but he continued to be king. He continued to live in the opulence of the palace. He continued to be surrounded by blessings. He continued to dine on the finest foods and wear the most ornate clothes. He still slept between satin sheets.
Some of you have experienced the oil, but are you bloody? Don’t let a day go by without looking at yourself in the mirror and caching to see if you are marked by the blood.
One man has said that talent will get you on stage but it is character that will keep you there. I declare to you that oil will get you on stage. However, it is only the blood that can keep you there!
I am concerned that we have all these folks running around claiming to be anointed, even showing signs of being anointed but they are in desperate need of a blood bath. Students thinking they are going to be the next big thing. They can preach the paint off the walls, sing the house down but we find them online viewing filth, going to Lake Hartswell using hands for unholy things, filling mind with junk. Then right back to preaching, singing, claiming anointing but no blood.
I want you to be anointed and we will pray to that end. But first I want to pray that you have a blood bath and that you walk around with dried blood on your ear, thumb and toe.
